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(Organization of Islamic Cooperation Secretary General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu answers questions at a news conference during the 66th United Nations General Assembly at the U.N. headquarters, in New York, September 23, 2011. REUTERS/Chip East )

Western opposition has made it impossible for Muslim states to obtain a ban on blasphemy, including anti-Islamic videos and cartoons that have touched off deadly riots, the Islamic world’s top diplomat said.

Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, secretary general of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), said his 57-nation body would not try again for United Nations support to ban insults to religion, but appealed for states to apply hate-speech laws concerning Islam.

“We could not convince them,” said the Turkish head of the 57-member organisation which had tried from 1998 until 2011 to get a United Nations-backed ban on blasphemy. “The European countries don’t vote with us, the United States doesn’t vote with us.”

Western countries see the publication of such images and materials as a matter of free speech.

The posting of an amateurish U.S.-made video portraying the Prophet Mohammad as a foolish womanizer and the publication of caricatures of him in France last month led to violent protests and renewed calls from the Muslim world for a global law against blasphemy. The protests claimed some two dozen lives.

Ihsanoglu told a conference in Istanbul at the weekend that the OIC had failed to win a ban at the United Nations and would not revive its long diplomatic campaign for one.

Author Profile

As Religion Editor based in Paris, I cover main religion developments, coordinate religion news coverage and run the FaithWorld blog. Since joining Reuters in 1977 in London, I've worked in Vienna, Geneva, Islamabad, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Bonn and Paris. My book Unchained Eagle: Germany after the Wall was published in 2000. In 2006, I received the European Religion Writer of the Year award and FaithWorld was awarded the RNA 2012 Best Online Section prize.